Tomorrow, the New Jersey Appellate Division will hear arguments on a case that will have a dramatic impact on the lives of thousands of low-income families still searching for a place to live after Hurricane Sandy.

Throughout the state, plans to build more than 3,000 homes for Sandy victims, people with special needs and working families are in limbo due to the Christie administration’s misguided and controversial attempt to seize $164 million in local housing trust funds. More than half of the funds are dedicated to homes in the nine counties hit hardest by the storm.

The NAACP hopes the Appellate Division continues its prior rulings and decisively ends this harmful roadblock to post-Sandy recovery for those with the fewest resources to rebuild.

Following Sandy, the need for homes in New Jersey has reached unprecedented heights. During the storm, more than 25,000 lower-income families in New Jersey — with a disproportionate number of African-American and Latino families from Cape May County to Toms River to Jersey City — saw their homes destroyed or severely damaged. That led to an extreme housing shortage and increased rents. At a housing rental fair in Atlantic City on May 17, hundreds of homeless families still displaced by Hurricane Sandy came in search of a safe place to live, but found few opportunities.

Too many of those families have stories similar to that of Newark resident Helen Gradziel, who has been forced to live in a severely mold- and rat-infested apartment that was without heat for most of the winter. Or Lori Dibble, whose manufactured home in Highlands was nearly destroyed and who is still living in hotel more than six months after the hurricane.

At this time of extreme need, it is unbelievable the Christie administration is attempting to seize these funds and stop the development of new homes.

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If seized, more than 3,000 homes already proposed would be lost. Examples include 148 apartments serving Sandy victims in Middle Township, Cape May County; 120 homes for people with special needs in Edison, Middlesex County; and more than 50 new Habitat for Humanity homes throughout Morris County.

A stop to these developments will further result in the loss of many jobs for New Jersey residents, including local developers, architects, engineers and construction workers who have been struggling to find work in the current economy.

Fortunately, on May 13, in response to a lawsuit from the Fair Share Housing Center, the Appellate Division issued an order blocking the Christie administration’s seizure of the trust funds. The administration went to the New Jersey Supreme Court to challenge that decision, but the Supreme Court last week agreed with the Appellate Division that the injunction was warranted.

At 2 p.m. tomorrow in Veterans Courthouse in Newark, the Appellate Division will convene for oral arguments to consider whether to continue its initial order.

The Christie administration claims the authority to take the trust funds under a landmark housing reform law the NAACP and our allies fought for in 2008. But that is a twisted reading of the law, confirmed by letters submitted to the court by the legislators who wrote the law in the first place.

Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver, Senate President Stephen Sweeney and nine other legislative leaders and sponsors noted that the law was “intended to facilitate local production of housing” — not block homes from being built.

Civil rights groups, housing advocates, the League of Municipalities, mayors of both parties and the leadership of both houses of the Legislature all have spoken with one, common-sense voice: Use these funds for their intended purpose.

Now more than ever, we must come together to stop the seizure of these funds so that all families in New Jersey displaced by the storm have a chance to find a home.

James Harris is president of the New Jersey State Conference of the NAACP.

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